Unleash Your Genius Zone: Find Your Unique Talents and Excel in Your Zone of Genius

Welcome back to Ravel Radio. In this episode, we're going to dig into the concept of operating in our strength zone and the importance of recognizing and developing our talents. Our guest today is Carol Wheeler. She's going to share insights from her experience, highlighting the power of leveraging our strengths for success. As a Gallup-certified strengths coach, Carol helps teams discover and deploy their individual and team strengths to promote more team commitment and less conflict. She provides workshops and speeches on talent, emotional intelligence, conflict management and building effective teams. Carol holds a PhD in leadership education from Oklahoma State University, a master's in higher education and student affairs from Indiana University and a bachelor's in leadership development from Texas A&M University. She formed NOPA Leadership to bring out the best in people through empowered leadership, so organizations can reach their objectives with the most important resource of all people. Let's hear what Carol has to say. Oh, hey, Carol, Thank you so much for joining me. Absolutely, Carol. I'm thrilled to be here. You and I have talked a lot and we always get into this strengths thing because I'm a total nerd about personality tests and psychology. So I would love to hear from you. What is the Strengths Finder test? What is this?

Sure. So Strengths Finder, which has been around for a really long time. they've actually now rebranded as Clifton Strengths, So I'm working on calling it that, but a lot of people still know it as Strengths Finder. Clifton Strengths is an assessment designed to measure your talents. What are things that you are naturally really good at? So the way that we define talent is a naturally recurring pattern of thought, behavior or action sorry thought, behavior or feeling that can be productively applied. So when we break that down, it is something that naturally happens inside of you, right, and that can be used for good. So the Clifton Strengths measures that and helps you figure that out. So some of the time you know what some of those things are, but a lot of times there are some things you're not even conscious of how good you are at them, right. So it helps to kind of bring that to the surface. When you take the assessment, what you get back is there are 34 talent themes within the Strengths Finder, And so the simplest version of the assessment will give you your top five. These are your top five talents or strengths that you are best at. You can also buy, spend a little bit more and get your full 34s in order so you can see what are the things like. how do they go all the way down to the bottom? But for most people that top five is the most powerful because it really helps you zone in on what are the things that I do naturally, Sometimes without even knowing it. a lot of times those top five are things that we are surprised that other people aren't also doing.

Yes, that has been my experience, for sure, and I kind of jumped in here a little bit because you and I already talked a lot about these things, so I should probably back up and fill everybody who else who might be listening in on, like, why are we talking about this Strengths Finder thing, this Gallup Strengths, clifton, strengths Finder? So you work with companies to help them help their leadership, build better, stronger, more effective teams that promote teams that are more likely to have high morale and high retention? Yes, absolutely, and the Strengths are one of the things that you look at right when you're working with these people.

Yes, I'm a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach Clifton. Strengths comes from the Gallup Organization, which should also tell you that it's very well researched But that. So Strengths is one of the tools It's kind of one of my core tools that I use in helping teams understand themselves and each other better.

I kind of thought. It would be cool to talk to you about leadership, leadership and what we need to do to understand ourselves better. Because if we're entrepreneurs, we are leaders and whether or not we have a team, we may have one-on-one day We still don't have to understand ourselves and how we work in our business and how we can work to our best ability. Because, like, even if you're a team of yourself, you want to have high morale and you want to stick with it, right, right, you still have to lead yourself. You want retention in your business for yourself, right.

Right, you want all of those things. If you're an entrepreneur, there's nobody out there leading you. You're leading yourself.

Right, i never really thought about that, yeah, but yeah, yeah, that feels like one of those moments where I realized I had to be a salesperson in my business too, where I was like what, i just want to be the entrepreneur person. I don't want to do sales, but it's fine, i'll do it whatever.

Here you are, there you are.

So yeah, so we're leading ourselves. So how do you see this show up for people, leaders when they don't know their strengths?

Sure, you know, i sometimes think about it as working in our strength zone or working outside of our strength zone. And one of the things I tell people is you know, it's not necessarily our goal to spend 100% of our time in our strength zone. Right, that would be lovely and idealistic. But for most of us, whether we're looking at jobs or leadership opportunities or being an entrepreneur, if we can hit 75 or 80% of the time in our strength zone, then we are flying, we're doing amazing things. When I talk about the strength zone, i sometimes use Gay Hendricks in his book. The Big Leap talks about zones and he calls them zone of genius, zone of excellence, zone of competence and zone of incompetence. And when I'm talking about your strength zone, you're in your zone of genius, like the things that you can do better than anybody, right, in your unique way. You're doing them differently and better than anybody else, right? Most of us entrepreneurs, first off, we have to look at that zone of incompetence, because if we're doing stuff in that zone of incompetence, we feel frustrated, we feel burned out. It usually takes us forever, right, if you have something on your list that you avoid until the very last minute, until it has to be done, and then it feels like you are like dragging yourself across the finish line. you're probably hanging out in your zone of incompetence, right, but where most of us actually get stuck is the zone of competence and even the zone of excellence. Right, because those are things there's less friction for us. We can do them Right, particularly that zone of competence. We can do it, but it doesn't bring us a lot of joy, it doesn't bring a lot of energy. A lot of times we still don't really feel like it's that great, like I got that done, fine, but it you know, like somebody else who did this a lot better. But whatever, i got it done. And then, even in that zone of excellence, we might do it at a really high level, but it still takes us longer and takes more of our brainpower than working in our zone of genius And there's probably somebody else who could do it quicker and better. And that those things in the zone of excellence are the things we have the hardest time giving up as entrepreneurs. Right, because you're like but I'm good at this?

Yeah, i can see that. So when you get your strengths finder or when you get your top strengths, i think I I know I paid for the whole thing because I wanted all of you to give me all of the information, all of it. I found it really helpful to see which ones were at the bottom so that I could take a look at where I might be spending time and explain, help explain to me why maybe that didn't feel good. I have zero of my top 10 strengths in execution, so that is really difficult if you're trying to be like a service based entrepreneur who is maybe on retainer executing marketing tactics for people. So I look back now and I'm like well, of course I was miserable doing everybody's marketing because I suck at it and it's not fun for me. But you and I have a lot of similar similarities in our top five, but that's that's not really common, because that there are a lot of combinations that you can have with 34 different strengths, right?

Yes, here's the stats, and I don't actually know the stat on the full 34. Top five one in 33 million. To find somebody else with the same top five in the same order? Whoa, wow, right, yeah, same top five, same order. I'm not even sure what it is on the full 34. Astronomical.

But just imagine if you think that somebody out there is doing the same thing that you're doing in their business or you think maybe their competition and their just think combine that statistic that you just said with maybe the Colby and the Myers Briggs and core values and your own personal history and story and the way you approach something, maybe what's important to you versus someone, what's important to somebody else who has that same top five in that same order. There's just, there's no way somebody could be bringing to the table exactly what you're bringing to the table.

That's exactly what I take from it. I think that's incredible to imagine that there really is nobody else like you. Like, there are things that you can do and ways that you can do things that nobody else can do. Right, because strengths is one piece of it. Like you said, there's these other personality tests. There's also just your experiences and your upbringing and your ways of approaching things and your ways of interacting with people. All of that comes together. There's nobody doing it the same way you are.

I want to circle back to what you said about how that's difficult to see, because that is one of the most frustrating things when you're well, like when I was trying to pivot the couple of years ago and I was trying to figure out what, what do I do really well? What do I do better than anybody else? What is my thing that I can contribute and do a really, really great job at and enjoy? And I couldn't see it. It was, it wasn't until somebody else pointed out this. You know, you know, not everybody else does that. That's really hard for a lot of people And I'm like what, you're kidding me. But when I looked at the strengths like now, when I look at them, it makes perfect sense. Well, obviously I can see where each one of those top strengths like feeds into the way that I kind of operate when I'm in my zone. But looking at them, the descriptions are kind of not vague, but you could apply them in a lot of different ways. Yes, so now that I look, look at them, i'm like, okay, well, that makes perfect sense, but it wasn't enough for me to really figure out where I was going. So would you say it's more about trying to operate in a certain way, rather than trying to figure out what you should be doing with them.

Yes, I think thinking about how you operate is really critical, because the reality is the strengths are going to operate in everything that you do right, Whether it's your business, your life, etc. For me, this is why strengths coaching exists. This is why there's people like me out here trying to help people figure it out. Because it's one thing I know lots of people who have taken the assessment and they've read the results and they're like, well, yeah, that's me Check. But actually then taking that and figuring out how it applies to your life and how it might influence the way you set up and structure your business and even what you offer in your business, That takes sort of a deeper level of analysis because, you're right, The strengths are purposely. They were created from research. They literally interviewed hundreds of thousands of people who had been successful really successful in education, in corporate America, in nonprofits, in the military, across all different sectors And they asked them what made you successful. And that data is where they pulled the talents. So these talents are not. You know, when you read the descriptions, they're not going to say, oh go, be a relationship marketer, That's who. You are right. It's putting all the pieces together and really understanding it that can help you.

Yeah, I think it's so cool. This is one of my favorite tests And I keep my strengths report in a folder on my desk because occasionally, when I start to doubt myself, I like to see in writing that there's proof that I'm really good at this thing, or whatever, You know. it's sort of like oh yeah, yeah, I can see where. that is where I'm winning in those departments.

Right Where I'm doing those things. yeah Well, and I think you know it just helps us. When you were talking earlier about having the full 34 is really helpful One of the things I tell people because you can buy the full thought, the top five and then go back and open up the rest of the report without retaking the assessment. Sometimes I encourage people to start there only because my sort of barometer for the full 34 is don't get the full 34 until you are at a place, personally, where you can look at the bottom and go, yes, that's not me, yeah Right. So if you're thinking, i want to know what the bottom are so I can improve that, oh God, don't look at the bottom, please, don't, please don't.

It's so it's so hard to shore up our like strategically. That doesn't make sense to me, and I know I've been conditioned to do that in life. We are conditioned to improve upon ourselves, right. So, but but like, think about how much energy goes into trying to be good at something you're not good at, as opposed to like letting loose on something you're really good at already. Yeah, like, absolutely, that is night and day and you're going to feel different, yep.

I use a formula like a mathematical formula when I teach this, where I talk about like knowledge plus skills creates competence. So you can become competent at almost anything by learning about and practicing it. right. But your improvement on that, once you get to a base level of competence, any improvement you see, is going to be very tiny for a lot of effort. Okay, talent is literally, if that knowledge and skills are in parentheses, talent is the multiplier. It literally exponentially multiplies that effort. So if you think about like a sports analogy, i was a tennis player in high school. I love to play tennis. I'm a pretty competent tennis player. I worked really hard at it. I put a lot of knowledge and skills toward it. I do not have a lot of natural athletic ability. I can go out. I could go out starting today and spend six hours practicing tennis and I would get better A little bit at a time, right. But you take somebody like Serena Williams and six hours a day, like she's going to get exponentially better Like her, the outcome of those, or the ROI on those six hours for her is astronomical compared to mine, right. So sometimes we do have to build competence, sometimes we have to look at something and go. you know, as an entrepreneur, if you are not at the point where you can hire somebody else to take care of your numbers and that's something you're not confident. Even if you have a bookkeeper, you're going to have to get competent at reading them right, like you may never be a whiz at that. You're going to have to build enough knowledge and skills to be competent, but you don't need to turn your business around where that's what you're focusing on.

I love that you just said ROI too, because as a business owner, time is really critical, like managing our time. It's easy, like I know, i get stuck in doing all the things and I have a hard time stopping because I'm always thinking about business and planning and not planning. Necessarily I don't always plan, but you know, as quick starts, yes, doing Just like the trying, the doing, the experimenting, right, but the truth is that our time is limited and there are places I should be spending more time So. So I really should be looking at this from the perspective of what can I be doing? How should I create a business structure, that business operate inside of that business in a way that's going to give me the most ROI for that time, and I should be working in my strengths most of that time.

Yes, absolutely Well, and I think that's you know as entrepreneurs, this can be really helpful in thinking about even small ways of how we set up our business right. So, for instance, you know you taught earlier about not having any executing strengths. I don't have any executing strengths in my top 10 either, and I always use as an example when people are like oh no, i don't have a domain. You know, i still get things done. I still showed up on time today. You and I are still here. You're still going to get this posted.

The podcast is getting edited. I am writing, i'm doing this script Like things are happening.

You are executing, does it?

feel, as it's not that you can't do it, it's just that it's not flowing for you. There's a lot of effort going into that.

There's more effort. Well, and one of the things that we learn is we have to look at how can our top talents help us to do the things that don't come naturally to us. So, for instance, i have learned the two things that really helped me. My strategic number one really helps me get things done because I can. I can plan down to a real specific and I can sit down and I can knock something out fast when I have to. And the second thing I've learned is I am much more motivated by relationships that I am about just getting things done. So, for instance, that's why it works really well for me to have business buddies and to be part of a coaching program that has some built in accountability of post what you're going to do this week, post how it went this week, do. Those kind of things are really motivating to me because I care about the relationships that are part of that And I want to be a valuable part of the community Right, and that helps me execute, so that so we can get there. But sometimes we have to look at it a little differently.

I'm so glad you just said that, because my number one is connectedness, right, and I care a lot about those relationships too. I care a lot about, like, connecting the dots for people and the girls in Ravel. I care a lot about all of them And so, like you just said, i'm way more motivated to push myself to execute things like like the silly getting things on the calendar and editing a podcast, because I, because of the strength of the relationships, Yes, because you know it's feeding into that relationship. Yeah, it matters a lot, kind of like the value linking thing. Like, yes, even though I may not like, my top three values are freedom, connection and authenticity. And like money doesn't show up in my top, like money is not not what motivates me, right, but if I want freedom, i need money, so I have to make that connection Right, you kind of got to get there.

Yeah yeah, connectedness is my number two. So I totally I always say to people for me, strategic and connectedness, the two of them together are my superpower.

So okay, so what are your top five again?

Strategic connectedness and input, intellect and individualization.

Okay, so mine this is more similar. Mine is connectedness input strategy strategic learner and activator.

Right.

So like that's.

Yeah, and I have a learner and activator both in my top 10. Yeah, learner is number six for me and I think activator is nine.

Yeah, can you explain the four categories of strengths really quick? Sure.

So at some point, in order to kind of help know lots of assessments like to group things. Okay. So Gallup created the four domains of leadership. One of the things I think it's valuable to know about this is that the 34 talent themes came out of deep and long term research. The four domains of leadership are a lot more theoretical. They came out from some really smart people sitting around who had done a lot of strengths work, talking about all the people that had had these themes and categorizing them. So they're a little bit more. I don't know. I just think don't get too caught up in the categories.

I just think it's nice to have a framework to think about those things.

Yes, the four themes and they also. They created the four domains as part of the book String Space Leadership. What they were is the four things that all teams needed to do. Okay, the relationship building is one category. Strategic thinking is another category. There's a whole, not just strategic, but a whole series of themes under that. Influencing is a third category and the fourth category is executing, as we've talked about The theme group. Underneath those and what you find is executing themes just naturally point to getting things done. Relationship building themes naturally point to making things happen or to making things happen within relationship. What's interesting is what an influencing domain is, the least common domain. A lot of times, particularly, i do some training for folks in sales and a lot of times people without influencing domains will get a little worried. But I'm a sales person. Well, yes, i would say that for the most part, people who are really natural sales people often have multiple influencing themes in their top five. But we all influence. I did a coaching session with somebody this morning who her influencing themes are all like 22 and below, but she has a whole coaching business, coaching and training, business doing meditation and mindfulness for people, and her business is growing leaps and bounds. So clearly she's influencing people, but she's doing it through relationship and thinking through relationship, building themes and thinking themes, not directly through influencing themes.

Yeah, that ties into what you were saying about how you rely on your strategy strategic being such a high like that's your number one as strategic and because of that you're able to strategize ways to execute even when it's not in your top five. Yes, so you can lean on your strengths to get more out of the areas that you're not. Yes, so heavy duty.

Well, one of the things that Gallup says a lot is the best in a role deliver the same outcomes, but don't use the same behaviors. So I think about that a lot when we do this is, instead of worrying so much about what do I need to do or who do I need to model myself after Oh, that person got the outcomes I wanted, so I'll just go do what they did Instead of doing that. go okay, what outcomes do I want and what's the path for my strengths to get to those outcomes?

Yes, yes, i have been guilty in the past of looking at what everybody else is doing and trying to figure out how they did that so I could get there too, when in reality, it would have been a lot faster and better for me to look at like look inward instead, instead of looking for the answers everywhere else. Looking inward and saying what do I do best and how can I best get wherever it is I want to go.

Yes, yes, absolutely. I think this influences, as entrepreneurs, how we think about both how we structure our business and what we offer, as well as how we do each of the tasks within our business that have to be done.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, i'll let this out, that's fine.

I'll ask you. I know you were about to ask, sorry, no, i forgot.

I'm having just like a moment here. holy crap, That's okay.

Take a minute. Right before that, we've been talking about the bubba, dee, bubba, dee outcomes. You get there via outcomes. Use your talents to get to the outcomes that you want.

Yeah Well, let me ask you this If someone is not working in their strengths, what does that feel like as opposed to when you are working in your strengths? I mean because you can go get the test and you can read it and use the logic there. but it does it. how do you?

feel I love this question. Sometimes I think it feels like running through sludge. That's the best visual I can come up with that you're just like right. It is the opposite of feeling energized. It feels extra hard and you constantly have more to learn than you could possibly learn to get this done. That's kind of what it feels like when you're not in your strengths. I'm never quite getting there. It feels demotivating. You're just not that motivated to do it. Every time you do it just feels like you're just dragging yourself through it step by step. It's interesting because one of the things we talk about I do speaking gigs or workshops with people who don't have the assessment, and when we do that, we talk about the philosophy behind strengths, which I think is the most important part Just this whole idea of focusing on what we're good at and what is right with us, rather than focusing on what we're bad at and what's wrong with us. that alone will change your life, whether without the assessment. When we do this, without the assessment, we talk about the five clues to talent. That is what it feels like when you are living in your strengths. One of those is flow. Just that moment when you are in something, you completely lose track of time. You lose track like a kid walks in and you don't even notice them because you were just in it, That state of flow we often experience when we're working in our strengths. Something else that happens a lot is we have what we call glimpses of excellence. You're doing something that you maybe haven't done a lot and you're like why was I so good at that?

Other people are like wow, How did I get so amazing?

Right. It's like something that you just glimps yourself being really good at. Again. that sports analogy sometimes is helpful. You imagine that moment where somebody sees six-year-old Serena hit a tennis ball and they're like, wait a second, there's some talent there, right? That sort of glimpses of excellence can really help too. It feels really good. Usually, when you're in your strengths zone, you walk away from doing something feeling energized and ready for the next thing rather than exhausted. Yeah.

It feels like a lot of the messages that I got growing up and in school and early on in entrepreneurship were just keep pushing, just keep trying, put your head down, work hard, work is supposed to be hard, or something. My dad would come home. My dad was a plumber before he retired and he would come home and every day I would be like hey dad, how was your day? I really wanted to know how his day was. Every day he said job sucks, boss is an asshole. That was what he said. I was like and I wonder sometimes, how long did I internalize that? maybe Did I think that? And then what does that mean if I'm the boss?

Right.

Yes, So I'm kind of curious. Yuz, you mentioned something earlier about how maybe we shouldn't look at all 34 strengths right away until we're comfortable with the idea that we're not going to be strong everywhere else. What do you think we need to do to make that leap? What happens to us? What do we need to know in between looking at just what we're good at and being able to objectively look at where we are not strong?

Right. I think that there's probably three things that I think help people get there. The first one is and I have a quote that I love so Don Clifton, who created the assessment, which is why we renamed it Clifton Strengths Finder or Clifton Strengths after him. My favorite quote of his was what will happen in the world where we start focusing and thinking about what is right with people rather than fixating on what is wrong. And so that's the first mindset shift is looking at yourself and what's right with you rather than focusing on what's wrong with you. The second thing is I said there were three. Hang on one second. Let me remember what my other two were, because I had them both in my head. I just went blank here.

It's okay. It's okay. It happened to me too. This is the beauty of editing You won't hear any of this.

Right, this will all go away. I'm going to talk about Clifton, i'm going to talk about the outcomes and then the oh weakness. Okay, so the second thing is is that what we talked about earlier about really believing that the best people get the same outcomes but don't do it the same way? Believing that, like having that mindset shift, is very free, because you quit thinking I have to be exactly like somebody to get the results they got. Right, you start thinking, okay, what outcomes did they get that I want to emulate, and not so much how do I try to be exactly like them? That's the second mindset shift. And then the third thing is beginning to understand that, for most of us, our greatest weaknesses are not actually at the bottom of the list. They are our greatest talents flipped on their head, our greatest talents taken out of control, without us developing them, without us paying really attention to them. So I can give you an example Really Strategic, yes, It's fascinating.

Okay, hold on Time out. I got to go get my folder, okay, get your folder, okay, okay. Yeah, find it Always right here, it doesn't matter. Okay, it doesn't matter, you can look at it later.

Okay, so. So, for instance, like let's take me for an example Um, strategic. Well, let's use input, because we've talked about strategic a couple of times. Input is my number three strength. Okay, um, input is this whole idea that people with input I call them like a a librarian of information in their head. They love to collect information. When they go down a rabbit hole in a particular topic, they really want to know everything about it, and one of the things they love to do is they love to share um resources with other people and they don't forget things Right. So they're like so if somebody starts talking about something and they're like Oh, i've got this great resource for you, let me tell you about it. Like, it's like their, their brain has this card catalog and they can flip through it quickly and pull it out. What other people like? how do you even remember that? I don't know, i just do So. Input um taken to the extreme. So if you imagine having that natural tendency but not understanding it and having no control over it, um, people with input can go so deep into a subject that they ignore everything else. So, for instance, when I was working on my dissertation and one of the things you have to do when you write a dissertation is write a literature review and go out and see what other people have said about your topic. Um, my instinct was to find every single article that had ever been written about my topic, which is impossible, right. So input out of control can keep you from moving forward, right. The other thing input can do, um so sort of on the backside, is sometimes it can make other people feel like you just always um need to be the one solving their problem, cause somebody starts talking to you about something and instead of listening and empathizing and hear what they have to say, um, if input is out of control, you have no control over it. Input is just like ooh, here, let me give you this. Ooh, here, let me give you this. Can you see how both?

of the. You're like I've done input. I'm sitting here going in, but my inputs, my number two and everything you said tracks, yeah, 100%.

So when we think about strengths, i think about strengths development as being about, if your strengths are a dashboard, like you're flying a plane, right, um? strengths development is about getting control of the dials, because these things are naturally recurring in you And so when you're paying no attention to them, they just spin out of control, up down wherever they want to go, right, based on your instinct. Strengths development is about getting control of those and being able to dial them up and dial them down being able to go. Oh. In this conversation, i can see that this person just needs me to listen, so I'm going to dial input down now And then later when they're like I don't really know what to do. I need some resources. I can turn it back up a little bit. Right, it's going. Oh, I turned input all the way up, um, for a month and a half researching my literature review. I have 250 articles. I'm going to dial it way back. That's enough, carol, turn it down Right, um, and so, like input, is this incredible strength? It's such a beautiful gift that you have to give to other people and to gather information and to have access to it to share, um, but that can. That, i would guess, gets you in more trouble than not having an executing strength in your top 10.

Oh man, that blows my mind. What, what happens when? what what happens when? connectedness goes? Goes uh off the rails.

Yeah, that's a good question, so sometimes connectedness. So what are the things I want you to look at? If you look at your full 34 report, um for on for each of your top 10, it has that. I forget what it's called, what it says, but there is um a section in there, um like watch, watch out for what to watch out for, or something like that. I had it actually up earlier, um, but yeah, it's something like what to watch out for. Um, i know it's right here. Just one second Watch out for blind spots. Watch out for blind spots, right, And so it'll tell you. It's called watch out for blind spots and it has it for each of your top five, i mean each of your top 10. Okay, right, so I think that's super helpful.

That's that's kind of and I did. I did read those when I read my report and every single one of them was like, oh, i'll really do that. I am the guilty of doing that.

So connectedness? Here's where connectedness can get you in trouble. Connectedness sort of has this deep belief that everything happens for a reason. We're all connected and it's all going to be okay, right. When somebody else is really hurting, they do not want to hear everything happens for a reason, right, they want sometimes they want something to cry with them, and sometimes connectedness. They love this person, they love the person they're in relationship with. But sometimes they can, they can be really calm in the midst of turmoil and craziness because they sort of have this underlying belief that everything is going to work out and then it's all. Things are going to happen the way that they're supposed to And so that that calmness can be really centering for other people when it needs to be. But it can also make other people feel like that you don't have a clue what's going on and that you're not really taking this very seriously.

Okay, You just explained like 90% of the issues. I have my husband and I have He. I think that's what you just mailed it. It drives him crazy when I'm like it's just going to work out, babe. I just know it. It's fine, don't worry about it, we're going to like the checks in the mail, you'll see it. And he's like, yeah, but where is it? What's happening? What? and he and I are total opposites, so that makes perfect sense. That's why it never occurred to me. That's why that drives him so crazy. Yes, yeah.

Cause that's not and he might have something like deliberative that is really good at paying attention to risks and understanding every risk and evaluating every risk right, And that what, what is so powerful about strengths is when we come together and realize that both of those things are needed Right, That both his perspective of connectedness and this belief that it's going to be okay and that you can be calm even when it's not, because you know eventually it will, and his ability to evaluate the risks right, Because he's going to see some things you're going to miss.

You know what I love that so much? because the more I learn about myself and my true nature because I think we and I'm neurodivergent, so I have taken on a lot of masks I learned to be really good at looking one way to stay out of trouble or whatever. But the truth is, when I look at who I really am, the more granular I get about it, the more I appreciate everyone else's differences. Like how great to be so deliberate and organized and like exacting, whereas I'm over here flying off the wall and like I'm thinking of clients in the past who needed like a very exact plan of how we're going to get there And I'm like, don't worry about it, we'll get there Right. And can you imagine having clients that were super deliberative and you're over here being all connectedness, like we're going to figure it out as we go? Don't worry about it. They're like what Right? What does?

that mean exactly That hurts my brain. Yes, exactly That. I mean knowing that about yourself. but I think that, like you know, when I look at my bottom, there's some things down there that it's clear that, like I don't naturally do those things, but those don't get me in near as much trouble as my strengths if I'm not paying attention and just letting them run off the rails.

So that brings me back to a thought that I had a few minutes ago about the fact that some of our greatest strengths can be framed as liabilities, when we're kids especially. So we grow up and maybe we start developing these subconscious, self-limiting beliefs about ourselves. Because somebody said we have our head in the clouds. Maybe we're strategy or like what are some of the things that like let's brainstorm for a minute and see if we can come up with some things that have been framed as liabilities for us or people we know. And then we go up and we're trying to tone down our strengths all the time because it's one thing to let it run rampant, right We also. We don't want to dial, not use them. What a waste.

Yes. So here's one that I think is fascinating. One of the 34 strengths that is, i think, my number 11 or so I would not be surprised if it's somewhere in your top half is command, and people with command. The way I describe them is they have present, they can take control of the situation and make decisions. But the best way I know it's garden. Do you know those people that if they walk into a crowded room you know they've walked in, they've got presence Right, they just, you just know, they command the room right. Even if you don't immediately turn or go talk to them or whatever you just they're there, right. They have this presence. Not a real popular strength for women? Oh yeah, not very encouraged, right. So women I know who have command in their top five or 10 were often been squished right, often been discouraged Like that's not very ladylike. Other people are supposed to be in charge. Why do you always have to be so bossy? Oh my.

God, i had a nickel, right Right, but I had a nickel Hold this child. Here's how we're going to do this.

Right, Yes, Exactly, Exactly. So command is certainly one, Woo is another one. I think you know woo is winning others over. It's an influencing strength And people with woo they just love making connections with new people, Depending on their other strengths. They may not always go super deep. They really just love meeting a lot of new people right, And interacting and they sort of naturally other people naturally like them right. Well, sometimes people can get a real bad rap for that right And can feel salesy and inauthentic, even though it's not inauthentic. But it can feel that way to somebody else who really only wants primarily deep relationships or really values going deeper with people than that sort of woo. Oh, I'm going to flip around from one person to the next in the room and talk to a whole bunch of people can feel really inauthentic. Huh, Interesting.

What's the difference between learner and input?

Good question. Input is about gaining the information and it may or may not be learning how to do something, and people with input want all of it. They want to go all the way and know all the things right. Learner is a little bit more. they just relish the relish actually learning things. They relish the process of learning And a lot of times they will flip from topic to topic. So they want to learn something well enough to do it and then move on to the next topic.

Okay, That helps. That helps a lot Because so my number two is input and number number four is learner. And so my husband I actually asked him about this this weekend because I was trying to remember what it was. But he sat me down years ago, probably after I quit one of my jobs really quickly and started a new business or whatever, And he was like I need you to stop being such a laser beam and I need you to be more like a floodlight and spread your energy around. Because I do that, I will go down a rabbit hole and I will obsess and obsess, and obsess. And then, once I figured it out and I've learned it all, I'm moving on to the next thing I have. Like I have thousands of dollars worth of spandex in my closet because I needed to learn how to sew bikinis at one point in time, not that long ago, And like I'm embarrassed by it that I have all that spandex in there. But it does help to know that that's something that I do. That's just part of my character, And when it's running rampant I look like a flake because I'm just like off to the next thing. Laser beam and then off to the next thing.

Right, well, and the interesting thing that learner input combo often looks like I learn a little bit about a lot of things and then a few topics, i go all the way in, right. So one of the things I'm looking for okay, i'm not going to find it fast enough I love thinking about theme dynamics, because one of the things about strengths right, we talked about how the order matters and one in three, 33 million, top five the same order, how those things play out together, matters a lot. So strategic looks one way for me. Even connectedness we just talked about as much as we have in common in our top 10. Connectedness is not the same for you as it is for me, because it's colored differently by the different strengths. Right, and so learner for somebody who doesn't have input, they, it's a little less, probably a little less laser beam because they don't need to go quite as deep, right, yeah, and input without learner is real chill. It's like I just have this one thing and I'm going to go all the way into it and I'm going to know everything about it. I'm going to collect all the books. So the order really matters too, then the order really matters, and even just looking at any set of two or three of your strengths and how they play off of each other matters a lot.

I love thinking about all this stuff. I love. I just love maybe, and it's just. It makes me sad to think about how much of how much time I spent trying to do things I'm not good at, or feeling badly because I maybe wasn't great at something that I really wanted to be good at, when in reality, like it's so much, it feels so much better just to like dive into the strengths. But I'm glad that you said that about knowing how to dial them and how to, how to manage them, because they I could see I could definitely see like times in my life when they went on overdrive somehow and like caused problems.

Right, they absolutely can. Well, that's where you know. I mean, one of the reasons why I do the work that I do is that I and I do lots of things besides strengths related to leadership and teams, but I love using strengths in that work because I haven't reached the end of the application yet. Right, once you know the basics of your strengths and then, if we're going to have a conversation about conflict, your strengths are going to play into how you deal with conflict. If we're going to have a conversation about goal setting, then once you write your goals, i'm going to say, okay, how are you going to strengths? How are you, how do your strengths help or hinder you from your plan, and how do you need to adjust your plan to work with your strengths? Right, i just haven't found the end of where all it can be applied yet.

So it's not just business either, it's our families, it's, i mean, all of it. Once you start looking at all your interactions and the things that you do, in the way that you act in this light, it's really interesting to kind of go back and think, oh, that's why that went down that way.

One of the most interesting things I've done and I didn't charge them for it because there are some friends of mine that I did a coaching session with two parents of five teens, oh, wow, and all seven of their strengths Fascinating.

That's cool. I wish God I love. I would love to know. I would love to get Jeremy's strengths down on paper so that I could prove to him why he should be doing the grocery shopping and not me. Look how deliberate you are. I'm like I need a list. Look what a good job this will do. Yep, Yeah, That's funny. Oh, that's so helpful. You have an offer that you do. that's. it's a hold on here. I didn't get that far to writing that down. What's the offer?

Okay, the strength deep dive Is that. are you talking about the like, one-on-one coaching about your strengths?

Yeah, i want to know how people can work with you if they're not a big corporation, or sure? Do you work with smaller entrepreneurs and businesses?

Yeah, I do. I do a lot of training and retreats and things like that for bigger organizations, usually for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, et cetera. The main ways that they will usually work with me is through coaching, the two ways that I typically do. that is, i have a six month minimum executive coaching package. We can meet twice a month for at least six months and we start with understanding your strengths. Then we really spend a lot of time on whatever it is you're trying to figure out in your life or your business or your leadership and how your strengths apply to that. The other way is the strength deep dive package. It is a small package. You get the assessment and you get a video for me explaining strengths and a video for me explaining your strengths. Then two coaching sessions. the first one focused on what are strengths and what do they mean. The second one, we're going to apply them to one specific goal. That's the quick, easy. It's a really good place for a lot of people to start because they don't want to spend a lot of money, they don't want to go commit to long-term coaching, but you really get a lot of information in a short period of time. I love selling that package because I don't have a lot of executing strengths and discipline and things like that. A two session, a couple of videos and two coaching sessions package works really great for me.

Yeah, i hear you. I can't believe I ever did retainers, long-term retainers and things that are super repetitive and not very fluid. I love the one day intensive type stuff.

Yeah, that's really what this is. It's just broken out into two sessions because I want you to think about it a little bit before you try to apply it. I love that I might have to do that. Yeah.

It's a lot of fun. It would probably save me a lot of time because I've considered getting certified, because it's so interesting going down that rabbit hole and learning everything I can about it. How practical is that at this point and would that really help, maybe?

not? Yes, it will cost you a lot less to get certified too.

Yeah, it's expensive, it's really expensive. You have a really deep understanding of all this. It probably is a lot of information and a lot of training that has gone into knowing what you know about it. Maybe I won't lose a thing.

Yeah, i've been doing strength since 2005. I used to run the strengths program at Texas A&M. I've done multiple weeks of training through Gallup. I know the stuff pretty well at this point. I love that Strengths. deep dive is my favorite. If somebody is interested in doing that, i'll charge $597 for it. I can send you a link. You can literally just hop on the website and buy it. You get the full 34 plus the videos and coaching sessions. I think it's a steal, but it's a lot of fun.

That does That sounds like. would that be a good fit for somebody who was maybe working in their business but not happy, and maybe at a crossroads and not sure which direction they needed to go?

Yes, absolutely, because what we're going to, you get to use those calls kind of how it works for you. Usually, the first call we're going to spend mostly kind of exploring your strengths, but the next second call is 100% focused on what do these strengths mean for an area that you want to apply into. If you are not sure, if you're at a crossroads, or how do I set this up, what do I want to do with this, that would be a really good starting point to just help you think through some of what that means.

Oh, i love that. I might have to do that myself, yeah.

Love it.

I'm always at a crossroads of some kind. I feel like 100% always. I know what that's all about. All right, Carol, Where can everybody connect with you?

I would love for people to connect with me on LinkedIn. You'll find me on LinkedIn as Carol McBride Wheeler. You can also search for NOPA Leadership NOPA Leadership and you'll find me there. That is the best way to connect with me. I love connecting with people on there. I post a lot of various content and videos et cetera Some about strengths, some more generically about leadership, but that's the quickest and easiest way. If you want to book a call with me, you can also go to NOPAleadershipcom and there's a quick, easy little button to schedule some time to chat Awesome.

Thank you, you're so welcome. Thanks, carol.